He exchanged a glance with the driver. “Better go on through,” he said. “I’ll catch up that extry horse and carry these two gents back into Kachina.”
“They might come back!” the driver protested.
Burnside’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “I don’t reckon,” he said grimly. “You git along now.”
BILL SAXX RODE hard for a short distance and then drew up. “Might as well save our horses,” he said. “There won’t be any pursuit now. Later there will be trouble.”
“What’ll the boss say?” Pres wondered.
Bill Saxx was thinking of the same thing, and his jaw set hard. “It don’t make a durn what he says!” he flared. “Deke an’ Windy are back there dead!”
“I’ll kill that Burnside,” Carter swore, “if it’s the last thing I ever do!”
“Lay off him,” Saxx warned. “He wasn’t foolin’ an’ he won’t be. That old devil’s rode with the curly wolves. He’s bucked the tiger an’ heard the owl hoot. You won’t get anything from him but a stomach full of lead!”
Bill Saxx was still stunned by the suddenness of the attack on their rear and he had not reached any definite conclusions about anything. What he wanted more than anything else was to put distance between himself and that stage. That they had shot the messenger, he knew, and that if discovered they would hang, he also knew. Two of their men had been killed and there would have been more had they tried to pick up the bodies. Box T men they were, and it would draw attention to the ranch, but they could always say those men had been fired sometime before.
Suddenly Tredway stepped from the brush ahead of them. His cold eyes went quickly to his foreman’s face when he saw that only three horsemen were present instead of five. Yet even as he noticed that he thanked all the powers that be that made him change his mind about going with the outlaws. Actually, he had changed his mind only a few hours before and had promised Saxx to meet him along the way. He had found two logs and dropped them across a narrow gap in the canyon where Chimney Creek cut through a cleft that was almost a tunnel. This allowed him to avoid crossing the bridge after shooting might have drawn the attention of Tom Burnside.
“What happened?” he demanded.
“What’s it look like?” Saxx demanded belligerently. “That Burnside was planted down in the trees. He was either tipped off or he spotted us in plenty of time. He drilled the boys right through the hearts. Knocked ’em down like they was tenpins. If we’d stayed longer, we’d have been dead—all of us!”
“You didn’t get the gold?” Disappointment was edged in Tredway’s voice. Then his keen eyes noted the bulging packet thrust in the saddlebag. “What’s that?”
Saxx reluctantly showed the torn corner of the package exposing green sheaves of new bills. “Don’t know how much,” he said, then added dryly, “We didn’t take time to count it.”
“We’ll carry on then, as planned,” Tredway said. “You boys ride on to Sipapu. You’ve been there since before daylight. You ran into some tracks, one of them looked like a Box T horse, but you were headed for Sipapu to round up stray stock. There used to be some cattle running over there, and as they know we’re cleaning the breaks, nobody will be surprised.”
Bill Saxx did not like it. He did not like it even a little.
“Suppose somebody has been in Sipapu? How are we goin’ to make anybody believe we were there all through the stickup?”
“Nobody will be there!” Tredway said impatiently. “Nobody is ever there! If there is, I don’t need to tell you what to do.”
“And this money,” Saxx inquired skeptically.
“I’ll take care of that,” Tredway said. “Tomorrow I’ll show up in town on the way to get you fellows and see how you’ve been doing.”
Vin Carter stared at the package of money, his eyes ugly. “I don’t like it!” he said wickedly. “I reckon we stole that money, so we better keep it!”
Tredway’s face hardened and he measured Carter with a careful glance. “And if you’re caught with it?” He sneered. “What then?”
When Carter said nothing, Tredway said coolly, “You can see these are new bills. The chances are their numbers are listed. I can handle them by scattering them widely through the East, and I know just how to do it. They’ll be watched for only locally. This money is no good to you as it is and is a hanging matter if it is found.”
Pres nodded. “He’s got somethin’ there, Vin. Better listen to him.”
“All right.” Saxx passed over the money. “But we want to hear from you by tomorrow. If we don’t, we’re comin’ after you. We’ll come home on our own.”
“If you don’t hear from me,” Tredway retorted, “I want you to come back to the Box T by all means. You don’t think for a minute I’d leave all I’ve got here, do you?”
Even Vin could see the logic in that, so glumly they watched him turn and stride off through the woods. Once across the logs, he dumped them into the canyon. If they changed their minds now, it would be too late. He was thinking swiftly, and had already decided there was no sense in trying to ambush the lot of them at Sipapu. Instead, he would gamble on Cassidy meeting them there and the resulting casualties. His note should have started Cassidy in that direction. The thing for him to do was to ride at once for the ranch. If anybody came for him, he would be sitting tight, all unaware of any holdup.
He forded the Picket Fork, riding hard, and was heading for the Kachina trail when something happened that pulled him up short.
Far away across the open range he saw a rider on a white horse! And that rider could only be Hopalong Cassidy!
The rider was headed on an angle that would cut his trail to the Box T, and if he rode on, could not miss seeing him, which would ruin his alibi and prove he had been not only off the ranch but in the vicinity of the Picket Fork!
He was still among rolling hills with plenty of cover, but now there was only one way out. He would ride for Kachina. He would come into Kachina from the west. That would do it. He would tell them he had been checking range conditions east of town and had left the ranch but a short time before. That would do it.
Yet as he started for Kachina he was filled suddenly with misgiving. This was not going as planned. It was not going at all as planned. Despite his confidence there was a sudden sinking within him, a growing fear that something had at last gone wrong, and somehow the trouble seemed to build around the presence of one man: Hopalong Cassidy.
CHAPTER 7
WANTED! HOPALONG CASSIDY
IT WAS DUSK when Tredway rode into the main street. A lone hen pecked at some object lying in the street and a few idlers sat on the edge of the boardwalk in front of the blacksmith shop. Tredway rode at once to the livery stable and put up his horse.
“Range west of town is worse than around my home place,” he commented to the hostler. “I dislike moving my cattle beyond the place and toward the Picket Fork, but I’m afraid I must.”
“They’ll get into the brush,” the hostler warned, “but I hear you’ve got some hands workin’ up there gettin’ cattle out now.”
“Yes.” Tredway paused, lighting a cigarette. “Some fellows I hired, saddle tramps.” He started to turn away, then paused. “You don’t know of a couple of good hands I could hire, do you? A couple of mine had to be fired recently. Loafing on the job.”
“That right?” The hostler considered a minute. “No, I don’t know’s I do.”
“They were good hands,” Tredway added, “until that fellow who calls himself Cameron came around. I contracted with him to get my stock out of the brush, but he and some drifter he has with him strike me as hard cases. These boys of mine have been loafing around up there ever since. I’ll have to get rid of that Cameron.”
Well satisfied with the planted ideas, he turned and walked on toward the hotel. The hostler picked up his currycomb and turned to the weary horse the Colonel had ridden into town. Now, what did he want to tell me he’d been west of town for? he wondered. That red clay on those hooves
never came from anywhere but the ford on the Picket Fork. He cleaned up the horse and gave it a bait of oats, then walked to the barn office and stretched out on the old settee. He was dozing when Tom Burnside rode in with the bodies of the dead men. He did not even awaken when the flurry of excited talk ran up and down the street.
From behind a curtain of his dark room on the second floor of the hotel, Tredway watched the disturbance in the street below. The dead messenger and the two outlaws were unloaded and then more excited talk began as the outlaws were recognized as Box T hands. Tredway stayed in his room, but occasional voices drifted words to him and he could fairly well follow the trend of the talk. There was much excited speculation on how many of the Box T riders had been involved.
He was still standing at the window when the rider on the white horse rode into town.
HOPALONG CASSIDY TOOK care of his own horse, and when Topper was well rubbed down and curried, with hay poked into the manger and oats in the feed box, he turned toward the restaurant. He listened without comment to the excited talk. The fact that the two dead men were Box T riders confirmed his already-arrived-at conclusion.
Evidently the three remaining outlaws had holed up at Sipapu, and would try to regain the Box T on the following day. Pike was smart, and he would take no chances.
Dead tired, he went to the hotel and turned in, unaware of what the next morning would bring.
THE HOSTLER HAD awakened. The red clay on the Colonel’s horse did not occur to him as being important, but Tredway’s account of the firing of two men did. The news ran through the excited town, and by daylight suspicion had pinned itself solidly on the man Cameron and his partner. The fifth man was generally supposed to be Rig Taylor. The discovery of Hopalong’s white horse in the livery barn was the next thing, and at once the town marshal, accompanied by three self-appointed deputies, went to arrest Hopalong at the hotel. They arrived to find an empty room.
When the marshal and his deputies passed his window, heading toward the entrance of the hotel, Hopalong was combing his hair. Their words were plain. “Arrest that hombre right now! Once we get Cameron, we’ll ride out an’ pick up the others. He was a fool to come right into town after the holdup!”
Hopalong Cassidy’s room was on the ground floor, and grabbing up his hat and his rifle, he slid the window up, dropped to the ground, and pulled the window down behind him. Hastily, he ducked down the alley and went around the back of the buildings to the corrals. A woman came to a door to throw out some wash water and she stared suspiciously at him, but he scrambled over the pole corral bars and dropped inside. He walked across, went through a gate and up to the back door of the livery barn. No one was in sight.
Hurriedly, he saddled Topper, cinched him tight, and then spotting a mostly white Appaloosa across the barn, he led that horse over into Topper’s stall and tied him there. Then he led Topper out the back door and from the corral gate into a hay field.
Here he was out of sight from anyone except those who might look out of a few windows, and it was no more than fifty yards to the willows along a tiny intermittent stream. Swinging into the saddle, he rode swiftly, circling wide to avoid anyone who might see him; he headed out of town for the Picket Fork.
Cindy Blair ran out to meet him as he neared the wagon. The sun was just over the mountains, although it was past ten o’clock. He swung down from his hard-ridden horse. “Oh, Hoppy!” Cindy rushed up to him. “We’ve been so worried! Pike’s not back and Rig just got in, and we didn’t know what had happened!”
“Plenty happened,” he admitted. “Where’s Rig?”
Taylor was coming toward him, grinning with relief. “What happened to you?” he demanded. “I rode over to the Box T yesterday for a showdown, but there was nobody home.”
“Nobody?” Hopalong’s eyes sharpened. “How long were you there?”
“How long? Why, I was there all day! There was nobody around but a Chink cook. All the hands gone and Tredway, too. I waited but nobody showed up.”
Briefly as possible, Hopalong Cassidy told them what had happened. He told them of the holdup at the dry wash, of the men killed, and that Pike was probably watching the remaining three outlaws at Sipapu right this minute. Then he went on to tell of the events of the night and morning and his flight from town.
“That doesn’t make sense!” Rig protested. “Why arrest you?”
“Leave it to Tredway! In the first place, he is obviously not suspected. After all, he is one of the biggest men in town. He wouldn’t be slow about realizing that he had to find an excuse for the two Box T men being in the holdup, so what does he do? I can’t prove any of this, but I’ll bet he claims that they teamed up with us to pull the job!”
“With us?”
“Sure! Look what it would do for Tredway! He’d get you out of his hair, he’d be rid of us and so have the cattle we’d gathered, few as he thinks they are. Also, he would have the guilt saddled on us and would have the money.”
“What next?” Rig demanded. “If that’s true, there is probably a posse right behind you.”
“There probably is,” Hopalong admitted. “If they just take a quick look at that white horse, they’ll think Topper is still in his stall and that I’m still in town. They won’t have any way of knowing just when I left my hotel room. They may waste some time looking around town, but you can bet they’ll be coming soon.”
“What do we do then?”
“Load up,” Hopalong said quickly, “and get the wagon started for Kachina. The women will be safer in town and they can tell their own story there. They can avoid the trail past the Box T, and instead drive east to the old Sipapu trail and go down it until they reach Kachina.” He looked quickly at Cindy. “You have money enough to keep the two of you for a few days?”
She nodded, watching him. “Of course. But what then?”
“We’ll have time to scout around. Pike may have something we can use. We’ll make contact with him, and I’ve another idea, too.”
“What’s that?” Rig Taylor asked. “It had better be good. If we go on the dodge, it will look bad.”
“How long do you think we’d last in jail in Tredway’s town?” Cassidy wanted to know. “My idea is to get in touch with old Burnside. He’s no fool. He’s been doing some thinking of his own, and believe me, he’s too wise in the ways of crooks to be led around by Tredway. If we can get to him with the story, he can nose around some himself, and he’ll like doing it.”
Within the hour the wagon was rolling, and Cassidy crossed the Picket Fork followed by Rig Taylor. Together they trailed the wagon, but kept out of sight back in the chaparral. Hopalong had no illusions about what was to come. Once in town, the women would be safe for in the West a good woman was never molested, or almost never. But this would not be the case with Hopalong and his friends. Tredway would see that the search was relentless, but he alone knew anything of the chaparral, and it was probable that it was much changed since his last venture into the wilderness beyond the Picket Fork.
The covered wagon was almost to the old Kachina-Sipapu trail when Rig suddenly grabbed Hopalong’s arm. “Look! There they come!”
A dozen men made up the posse and they came riding swiftly after the slow-moving wagon. In an instant they had surrounded it. Not over seven hundred yards off, Hopalong leveled his strong field glasses at the group and watched. He could make out nothing of what was being said, but he could see the faces plainly enough. Tredway was not among those with the posse, nor was Tom Burnside.
Buck Lewis, the town marshal, was there, and with him were a number of faces Hopalong had seen around town, but none of whom he knew. Cindy Blair stood up in the wagon and appeared to be doing the talking, and apparently she was telling them but good. Hopalong passed the glasses to Rig. “I reckon they’ll make out,” he said, “but that posse will head back for camp to pick up our tracks.”
Rig nodded, then said suddenly, “How about leading them to Sipapu? Maybe they’d run into Bill Saxx.”
“He’ll run the legs off a coyote!” Rig was grinning. “Let’s start ’em!”
Hopalong wheeled to the edge of the chaparral and looked down toward the horsemen at the wagons. Lifting a hand, he yelled. The horsemen jerked around staring, and he yelled again, then wheeled and let Topper have his head.
The white gelding hit the piñon breaks running like a scared rabbit, with Rig Taylor about a length ahead. They were not far from the crossing of the Picket Fork, and both men knew the exact location of this intersection of the river and the Kachina-Sipapu trail. Riding swiftly, they reached the ford and splashed through, then ran up the trail toward Chimney Creek Canyon. The old bridge was out, but they might at least lead the posse to a place where they could see the abandoned buildings at Sipapu … perhaps leading them to investigate.
Riding side by side, the two rode right up to the canyon, then rode off the trail to the right. Almost instantly Hopalong swung at right angles into the dense chaparral, finding a narrow cattle trail. Leading the way, he whipped and turned through it, then spotting a thin place, he lunged Topper at the wall. It gave before him and they pushed through the brush toward the widest and thickest part of the chaparral. This was the section on the east side of the Sipapu trail and an area wherein neither man had worked.
They had been pushing through the brush for some distance when Hopalong suddenly saw the tracks of a rider coming from Chimney Creek. As he correctly surmised, these were tracks made earlier by Tredway when he contacted the outlaws after the stage holdup. He rode swiftly along this trail, keeping out of the tracks so as not to spoil them, and they brought him at once to the narrow portion of the canyon. On the lip there were fragments of bark broken off when the logs had been dropped across the gap. Below, on the rocks at the edge of the stream, they could see the logs.
After a brief glance the two riders turned back into the chaparral. Behind them they could hear the pursuit, but evidently their trail had been lost, for the shouts seemed to be along the creek itself.
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